LET US POST IN CAPITAL LETTERS!!!!

Maybe the Mets get blown out tonight. Maybe pitchers dropping throws and middle infielders letting balls go through them aren't so easily dismissed around 11:30 tonight. Maybe we've used up all Bannister-like escape artistry available to starting pitchers. It's baseball, after all.

But for now, let's just enjoy this baseball siesta. Let's bask in the afterglow of a game that went from tense and interesting (Dan Giese throwing darts, Mike Pelfrey watching bloops and dinks and parachutes dent his ERA) to not at all tense and very enjoyable. Pelfrey got progressively less impressive after the first inning (he sawed apart Jeter despite a non-call from Tim McClellan, the Human Rain Delay of umpires), but he wiggled out of trouble. Our wretched-on-paper lineup (Nixon-Anderson-Tatis-Schneider is a lot of dead wood) proved more than equal to their softer-than-usual lineup. (Wilson Betemit? Justin Christian?)

And there was Carlos Delgado. At this point, no one familiar with Delgado or the 2008 Mets would put money on this being the start of the turnaround for either of those entities. (Heck, Babe Ruth hit three dingers in his twilight as a Boston Brave in May 1935, and it meant they lost 115 instead of 116.) But man, wasn't that fun? The double off Edgar Ramirez in the fifth was the smallest blow but the most-heartening development: With a 2-0 count and the game tied, Delgado stepped out to gather himself and all of us watching (from the stands or in front of the set) leaned forward, aware that this was a Big Moment and hoping that Carlos would find a way to convert. The grand slam was the big exhale, the blow that rendered the game safe. And the three-run homer was pure happiness — no sooner had Gary Cohen got out that Delgado had a shot at the club RBI record than Carlos made it so. Baseball's at its best when the tension ratchets up excruciatingly with each pitch and foul and flashing of catcher's signs, but sometimes it's also a lot of fun when everything happens very quickly.

OK. Whew. Exhale. We don't know what the future holds — we never do — but the day's been fun so far and it's a nice summer night. Let's play two!